“A farming planet? Excellent,” Doctorow said. “Where do you intend to set up your base?” Doctorow asked.
“Fort Sebastian,” I said.
Doctorow seemed to expect that answer and shook his head. “I am not sure that will be an acceptable arrangement, Captain.”
“It’s not as if we have other options,” I said.
He put up a hand to stop me. “Admiral Thorne told me about your situation.”
“Yeah, well, I never planned on retiring in Scrotum-Crotch,” I said, forgetting myself and using the Marine-speak name for the galactic arm.
“There’s no need for vulgarity, Captain,” Doctorow said. Our eyes locked for a second, and I saw good humor and maybe a little embarrassment in his expression. “Sorry,” he said. “Force of habit from my days as a chaplain.”
I apologized as well.
“I am sure we can find a more suitable arrangement. Terraneau is a large planet, surely we can find locations other than Norristown for you to use as a military base.”
“I don’t get it. Why can’t we use Fort Sebastian?” Thomer asked.
Doctorow fixed him with a plastic smile. “It’s not the base that I would object to. It’s what happens to the town around it.”
“So you’re worried we won’t behave ourselves,” I said. “What is this, your own personal theocracy?”
When Doctorow answered that he was trying to foster a community, not a theocracy, I asked the question I had wanted to ask since we first met. “How did you become the king of Norristown anyway?”
Thomer shifted nervously as I asked this. On Fallzoud or off, he had a deep respect for authority.
“The bard of Norristown might be a better description,” Doctorow said. He pulled his third beer out of the basket and drained it. “Anyone else for another?” He had come with twelve beers. After we each took one more, only three remained.
Outside, a new day had begun.
“Will you look at that—there’s a sun in the sky over Norristown,” Doctorow said. “Do you know how long it’s been since I’ve seen one? It may not mean much to you …”
“It means a lot to me,” I said, giving Thomer a commiserating glance. “How about you, Sergeant? Does it mean anything to you?”
Thomer nodded. “Like swimming underwater and suddenly getting your first breath of air.”
“Yeah, right, like getting your first breath of air,” I said, impressed with Thomer’s analogy. It was too good an analogy. I would not have expected it from a Fallzoud jockey.
“Colonel Doctorow, what did you mean by the bard of Norristown?” Thomer asked.
“In a figurative sense, I am in charge because I am a singer of epic verses,” Doctorow said.
“Is that what you do?” asked Thomer. He felt comfortable around Doctorow. Clearly they had bonded during their mission to the mines.
“You seem to be the man in charge,” I said.
Doctorow told me the history that I had missed. He talked about the fall of Norristown and the deaths of over a million soldiers. After the aliens spread their ion curtain around the planet, the Army had managed to hold out for a month. During that entire time, Doctorow remained on active duty, delivering sermons to men who he believed had no souls and blessing the mass graves of men who he believed had no hope.
“It came to nothing,” Doctorow said. “Prayers, works, faith …nothing.”
“Sounds like you lost your faith,” I said. I did not tell him about my misplaced faith. I did not think it mattered.
“Lost my faith?” Doctorow echoed. He shook his head. “I still believe there is a God, if that is what you mean by faith. But if He is anything like I picture him, He’s not much of a shepherd.”
“If not a shepherd, then what?” I asked.
“Just a voyeur. Just a cosmic witness. A bystander who probably thinks it’s strange that we still call to Him for help when He hasn’t done anything to help any of us for thousands of years. He probably hears us calling and laughs.”
“ ‘For with the old Gods things came to an end long ago,’ ” I said, still spouting Nietzsche. “ ‘One day they laughed themselves to death.’ ”
“What was that?” Doctorow asked.
“It’s something an old philosopher said,” I said. “He said the Gods laughed themselves to death.”
“Well, now there’s some blasphemous bullshit,” Doctorow said.
“There’s no need for vulgarity, Colonel,” I said, purposely trying to make my voice like Doctorow’s when he had corrected me. We all laughed.
“ ‘Gods laughed themselves to death …’ You have to admit, it does sound pretty stupid,” Thomer said.
I did not say anything. Until that moment, I had always thought it sounded mystical and wise.
Doctorow changed the subject. “Thomer says you’re a Liberator clone. Is that right? He says you know you’re a clone.”
“That’s right,” I said.
“He says he knows he’s a clone, too,” Doctorow added.
“We do live in an age of miracles,” I said. “So, you were explaining to us how you became the poet of Norristown?”
“Not so much a poet, maybe a historian,” Doctorow said. “I recorded the defense of Norristown, one funeral at a time. I was like a New-Age version of Homer recalling the siege of Troy. Now you’ve come along and changed the ending of the story.” He paused, pulled out his fourth beer, and chugged it.
“How did you end up in charge?” Thomer asked.
“Most of the line officers died. Some took their own lives. That left me the highest-ranking man on base.
“When the fighting died down, the people came to Fort Sebastian looking for protection; and I …I gave them the best advice of all. I told them not to fight. At the time, I told them to trust in God because God would protect them.
“As it turned out, we didn’t need God to protect us. Once we stopped taking up arms, the aliens went away.”
“Maybe that was how God protected them,” Thomer said. We both stared at him. This was his night for deep thoughts.
“You’re defending God?” I asked.
“It just seems like that’s how God works,” Thomer said, sounding defensive.
“That was how I rose from a chaplain to leader. Funny, it happened so gradually that I never stopped to think about it.”
“So are you governor of Norristown or the whole planet?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” Doctorow said, thinking the question over. “I’ve never been outside of Norristown. We lost contact with the rest of the planet.”
“Why did you put all those girls in that building?” Thomer asked.
“They’re orphans,” Doctorow said. “We put them there so we could keep them safe.”
“Safe from whom?” I asked.
“Just safe,” Doctorow said.
“The building I was in, was that a dorm for orphan boys? Were they just trying to keep themselves safe when they rigged the walls with explosives?” I asked. “They almost killed me.”
“They weren’t trying to hurt you, Captain Harris. They barricaded the door with a propane canister from their kitchen. It was the heaviest thing they could find. Fortunately for all of us, they were already running for the fire escape when you tossed your grenade at the door.” He chuckled. “That kind of behavior is another reason why we would prefer for you to build your base away from Norristown.”
PART III
THE RISE OF THE SCUTUM-CRUX FLEET
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Usually I rode in the cockpit, but on the ride back from Terraneau, I chose to ride in the kettle with what was left of my men. We had two transports and eighty-three men—counting pilots. The whole lot of us would have fit comfortably on one transport; divided between two birds, the gaps were conspicuous.
I sat near the rear in an especially dark corner of the cabin, sneaking glances around the kettle and browbeating myself for our losses.